Thursday, September 03, 2009

Slacker

It turns out that they want me to do some work around this place, which is very annoying because...I don't wanna. I don't want to dig into this big, complicated statistical analysis and report writing odyssey with no help at all--with only chiding and vague deadlines and, "How long have you had this report? You could have written it by now...you don't need the numbers." Oh, I don't? Well, actually, I do. Because that's how I work. I need to know what I'm writing about before I start writing.

While this report is one of the reasons I felt compelled to come back to my job, over the past several months, I haven't worked on it much at all. I dread it. It's too much, too overwhelming, too complicated, too obscure and too much goddamn pressure on just me.

I try to make little bargains with myself: I'll work on it one hour a day. But would that even be enough? And where to start? The words? The data? It's too much. Even though it's my baby, it's not my area of expertise (only by happenstance), and the stats may be a little over my head. Well, not really, but the replication may be. Or maybe not, but it requires a kind of detailed focus that I'm not good at. Or maybe I am.

Maybe the problem is that I don't like this project very much. It's boring and I don't want to do boring work anymore. I want interesting work.